Ping Table, Pong Tennis

According to ancient lore, since the origin of the game the names "table tennis" and "ping pong" have been used interchangeably for this high intensity sport. In modern times most professional players like to say that they play table tennis while recreational players are fine referring to the activity as ping pong. During the summer, I went to the Canada Cup Premium - Greater Vancouver Open Table Tennis Championships hosted by the Canadian Chinese Table Tennis Federation and organized by Table Tennis Canada at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (CCP-GVOTTC presented by CCTTF and TTCAN at BCIT).


The BCIT gymnasium was filled with around ten table tennis boards with furious action taking place at all of them among contestants of different age groups, skill levels, and gender types. There were bleachers on each side upon which the spectators sat watching the ping pong balls whiz past their eyes. As time passed and players were eliminated from the competition, the number of tables began to rapidly shrink until there was only one table left. The largely homogeneous audience, which had up till now been evenly distributed, also compressed itself into the central bleachers so that they could catch all the fast paced action. The Canadian champion lost to one of the top ranked players in the world - Chen Weixing, but not before putting on an entertaining show.